Excellent post and I wholeheartedly agree - especially with point 1
I had only played W5 before this world and it was just too complicated with all the extra units and Paladins for a noob to get their head around quickly enough to be active - plus it was just too slow to rebuild and attack over distances so people just turtled
I did join the odd world between 6 and 14 ang again just ended up being unlucky enough to end up in the wrong place on the map, but nothing in the settings (especially tech levels which are just a waste of time as EVERYONE ends up with max levels so whats the point after a month or two) excited me
W24 to me is the stripped out basics of how it should be - minimum buildings, no complicated tech or research, basic troops (though I did miss the little tactical advantage of paladins), no church and fast enough to be interesting but not so fast as to make the newbs give up
This will probably be my last world unless the planned "no farming" one comes out or another identical settings world shows up